


Here I Go Again (on my own)

by socknonny



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Anger Management, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Homophobic Language, Light Angst, M/M, Talking, Trust Issues, as in the way it is used in the fic more than the word itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 23:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14705052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: When Steve met Billy's eyes, the intensity was gone. He simply stared at Steve, leaning back against the bus and watching him with a resigned sort of apathy. Like he was waiting for Steve to walk away.Or: Steve can hear someone smashing up the old car yard. His curiosity gets the better of him.





	Here I Go Again (on my own)

Someone was smashing up cars at the old junk yard. Steve could hear them, the sound of metal screeching against metal tearing through the wind until it sounded like something was crying out in pain.

Actually, maybe something was. Now that Steve was focusing on it, it wasn’t only the sound of things breaking that he could hear. There was something else—a low note of pain that was way too human to be a demodog and too monstrous to be anything familiar.

He liked to roam the walking tracks around here. It made him feel like he was patrolling the border, on the lookout for attack, ready to meet it. His parents weren’t home, as usual. More and more he found himself leaving the house when they weren’t there. He couldn’t take the silence, the deafening absence of people who were _meant to be there_. People who left when they were meant to stay.

Anything was better than that, even the forest.

But it looked like he’d found something undeniably worse. Something dangerous. He should leave it alone.

He changed direction and walked toward the junkyard.

Just before he crested the hill, a hunk of what might once have been a door flew past his head. He swore and ducked out of the way, pausing for a moment to just stare at the rusty metal that lay next to him. The dust settled around it. It looked strangely impotent now; fuelled by anger one moment, harmless the next.

He shook his head and kept walking, some part of him worried that he was going to find Hopper or someone out here using the cars as target practice. He’d never seen the man lose his temper, but he had a feeling if he did it would look something like this.

When he laid eyes on Billy Hargrove leaning against the old bus, doubled over and clutching his hair and just _breathing_ like it was all he could manage, everything started to make sense. A distant part of him knew he should turn away now, listen to the warning that was pulsing through his veins, telling him to run. But he’d always been too curious for his own good, never able to leave well enough alone. Before he knew it, he’d come to a stop several feet in front of Billy, and the other boy had finally registered his presence.

Billy looked up slowly, a tension in his stance that somehow put Steve even more on edge. It was as if Billy had been expecting him, the same way a cornered animal expected imminent death. But then their eyes met, and the wild edge of panic shifted to recognition and then confusion.

“Harrington,” he said slowly, his voice rasping like he’d spent hours yelling himself hoarse.

Maybe he had.

“Yeah,” Steve said, the smartass quip dying on his tongue as he realized Billy wasn’t trying to fight him. “What the hell are you doing?”

For several moments, Billy didn’t move, his eyes a little glazed like he was looking at something that wasn’t there. Then he refocused on Steve and twisted his face into an arrogant leer.

“Just enjoying the country air.”

“Don’t be a dick. Are you smashing up all these cars?”

“What if I am? They’re all shitheaps anyway. This place is abandoned.”

Steve ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, but…” He trailed off. Why was he even still here? Billy Hargrove was trashing cars because he was an aggressive piece of shit and that was his idea of fun—mystery solved. “All right, whatever. I’m going now.”

Something dark and mean flashed in Billy’s eyes. For the first time, Steve noticed the damp pool of sweat around Billy’s chest, turning the white of his Henley almost see-through. How long had he been out here?

“Get out of here then,” Billy spat. “Stop wasting my fucking time.”

Steve didn’t move. Something was different about Billy today. There was something underneath the aggression. Whatever it was, it was keeping Billy from actually approaching and starting a fight. If anything was going to put Steve on edge, it was that.

And more than that, there was something pulling Steve close, something he’d never seen before. It was familiar, like looking into an old mirror.

“Why aren’t you trying to hit me?”

Billy’s face twisted into confusion, masked quickly with annoyance. “Oh, I don’t need to _try_ , pretty boy. Or have you already forgotten?” He pushed away from the bus and moved into Steve’s space, but it was completely different.

For some reason, Steve knew he wasn’t in any danger.

“Listen, man, you can’t just…” Steve waved a hand in the vague direction of the destroyed cars. “Just trash things when you’re pissed off. What happened?”

Billy stared at him incredulously. “Are you— Are you trying to _talk_ to me, Harrington?”

“That’s what two people do when they say words to each other, yeah.”

“Well fucking stop it.”

Despite how close they were, Billy still hadn’t lifted a hand to hurt him. Steve could feel the warm rush of Billy’s breath against his skin, they were standing so close. He couldn’t remember a time when the two of them had ever been like this.  The rising tide of aggression mounting between them was undeniable, like the charge before a storm, but for once it felt muted, distant. It was as if the anger was far away, with something else—some _one_ else.

“What the hell happened?”

Steve didn’t even mean to say it this time, it just poured out of him. The question sounded raw, honest in a way he never was with anyone, like he’d somehow revealed part of himself instead of asking for part of Billy.

He just wanted to know what had happened—just needed to know what could turn the resident dickhead from some toxic alpha male in need of constant validation to the emotional wreck standing before him.

Billy froze, the stillness in his body changing from intimidating to powerless in the span of a heartbeat. Steve’s heart started to race, every inch of his flight or fight response kicking in and telling him to _fucking run, right now._ Something wasn’t right. In the moments just before everything changed, Steve found himself deliriously wondering if it was too late to take it all back—to leave while he still had the chance.

Then, Billy was crying. It was just a single tear rolling down the inside of his cheek, so subtle Steve might not have noticed it if he hadn’t been standing so close. He chest tightened painfully in shock and apprehension, but before he could act, Billy had backed away.

Billy leaned back against the bus, the rigid tension of his shoulders gone as if it had never been there. He was hunched over himself again, although this time he was looking at Steve, blue eyes piercing in the fading light.

“Just fuck off.” The words lacked bite. More than anything, that convinced Steve something was terribly wrong.

He took a careful step forward. Billy didn’t move, just watched him. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

Billy said nothing.

“I just…” Steve paused before coming to rest against the side of the bus beside Billy, facing him with his shoulder against the cool metal. He didn’t know why the hell he was still here, but some part of him just felt drawn to boy beside him, though he couldn’t figure out why. It was like he was seeing him properly for the first time. “We don’t have to talk about it. But if you keep beating up cars you’re going to hurt yourself eventually.”

Billy snorted. “Like you care.”

“I don’t.” That might have been a lie. “Just pointing out the facts.”

The silence stretched between them. The sun was dipping low on the horizon, sending long rays of orange light across the yard. Steve had nearly reached a point where the shadows no longer made him twitch. Nearly, but not quite. He shifted uncomfortably against the bus but didn’t leave.

“What’s with chicks, man?”

Steve blinked at the sudden subject change. “Huh?”

Billy let his head fall back against the bus and stared up at the sky. “They keep trying to find something deeper. Try to get _big, bad Billy_ to cry on their shoulder or some shit. Like there’s some softer side underneath all this.”

Steve didn’t point out that Billy still had tears in his eyes. He just let him talk.

“There’s nothing softer. Don’t they fucking get it?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one up and passing the pack to Steve without looking at him. Steve followed suit, watching the smoke drift between them. “So, you had a bad date, then?”

Billy laughed without humour. “Yeah, but that’s not why I’m here.”

Steve didn’t ask, just waited. Birds called to each other in the distance, but it felt so different to the mood that was building between them that it was as if it belonged to another time, another world.

The acrid scent of tobacco filled his nostrils as Billy took another long drag and blew it out in Steve’s direction, nearly facing him now but not quite.

“It was a shitty date. You know, that whole _tame the bad boy_ shit.”

Steve didn’t know.

“But when I got home, my dad picked a fight. Told me to stop dating whores and pick someone worth starting a family with.” The words sounded dead, devoid of emotion. “I probably would have let it go if I hadn’t just had a screaming match with some chick, trying to convince her what you see is what you get.” He shrugged. “Whatever.”

Steve was fairly certain there were large gaps in that story. Gaps that somehow justified whatever it was that he’d witnessed here tonight.

“My dad’s a bit of a hardass, too,” Steve said, aiming for solidarity.

Billy dropped his cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out. His next words were brisk, matter of fact. “He call you a useless queer?”

Steve stuttered, nearly dropping his own cigarette by accident. “What? No. Is that what—”

“You know what they say: the truth hurts.”

When Steve met Billy’s eyes, the intensity was gone. He simply stared at Steve, leaning back against the bus and watching him with a resigned sort of apathy. Like he was waiting for Steve to walk away.

Slowly, deliberately, Steve relaxed beside him. He took a breath, searching for the words, finally settling on simplicity.

“What an asshole.”

Billy stared at him. “I don’t think you heard me—”

“I heard you.”

The seconds stretched into minutes. The shadows were longer now, but despite the flicker of fear in Steve’s chest, he didn’t leave. He didn’t _want_ to leave.

“You’re not leaving.” There was something in Billy’s voice, and that was it—that was the thing that had been drawing Steve closer this whole time.

He turned his head towards Billy and saw the other regarding him, his face open and for once free of all its defences. His head was tipped back against the bus, the long lines of his throat catching the last of the fading light. For some reason, Steve couldn’t quite look away.

Who was he kidding? He knew the reason.

“Why would I leave, man?”

Billy’s eyes widened a little as he noted where Steve was looking. For a second, he looked nervous. His eyes fell lower, to Steve’s lips, and he visibly swallowed.

Something passed between them—a new awareness, like the answer to a question they hadn’t asked. They looked away from each other, but they were closer than before, the distance between them slowly closing.

“I hate people leaving.” The words were out of Steve’s mouth before he could think about them.

Billy raised his eyebrows.

“Would it kill them to fucking stick around for once?” Steve kicked out with his shoe, catching a spare hunk of metal and sending it skidding across the ground. “Would it kill them to listen?”

After a moment, Billy shoved his hands in his pockets and finally—noticeably—relaxed. He slouched against the bus, and the movement made his arms drift closer to Steve, brushing against him. Steve pressed into the warmth.

“We can talk about it if you want,” Billy said.

Did Steve want to? The moment hung between them as the last rays of the light disappeared from the sky. A few minutes more and the stars would be out.

“Nah,” Steve said finally. “It’s cool.”

Billy turned to him, his face just enough in shadow that Steve couldn’t read his expression. “Want to sit in my car and listen to music?”

Steve broke into a smile—surprised and strangely touched. Billy led the way to the Camaro parked just over the hill, and before long they were in the warmth of the front seat, the sound of some unknown band’s guitars wailing around them.

There was space between them, but it wasn’t much. Over the course of Track A, the distance disappeared until their arms were pressed up against each other, each tracing idle patterns along the centre console as if it was just a coincidence that they were side by side. By Track B, the silence had disappeared too. Words poured out with the same impotent fury as broken car parts, filling the space of their private world until each of them could hardly breathe from the weight of what they were letting go.

The truth didn’t always have to hurt.

It was nice in a way that Steve had never experienced before. Nice and somehow more intimate than any moment he’d shared with a date in the past. There was no denying the pull between him and Billy, the careful admission they’d both made without saying the words outright. And yet, neither of them made a move to rush anything, and Steve was glad. It seemed somehow important to have this first. Like maybe they both needed this right now in a way that they didn’t need anything more, even if they both wanted it.

When the words faded away and they were left with just the two of them, half asleep with their hands side by side, Steve asked the question that, for once, he didn’t need the answer to.

“Are you leaving?” The words were soft with sleep, the soft buzz of the finished cassette almost drowning them out.

Billy looked over at him, his expression visible now in the light of the rising moon. He smiled.

“Nah. I’m not going anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm happy with this as a one-shot, but if I do continue it will be as a separate work in the same series. Thanks so much for reading <3


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